Typography is the technique of designing and arranging type. The design and arrangement of type involves the selection of typefaces, point size, line length, leading (line spacing), adjusting the spaces between groups of letters (tracking) and adjusting the space between pairs of letters (kerning). Examples of a typeface include “Liberation Sans,” “Times New Roman,” “Arial,” etc. A font has a specific size designation. For example, “Liberation Sans 10 point” is a font. A font author, designer or creator is a person that writes the software driving the usage of the typeface
For artistic effect, font authors may sometimes create fonts with distressed, rough, or otherwise organic effects. Typically, these effects are statically embedded in the fonts. If an end user uses the same character in a sequence, these effects are conspicuously repeated and the illusion of organic effect to the font is broken.
To obtain a more dynamic or organic-looking type treatment, a font user often converts a font to vector or bitmap artwork and manually applies the dynamic or organic effects to the type. The process is manual and time-intensive. Further, manipulation of vector or bitmap artwork necessitates the work of a skilled artist, which means automation of the effects would be extremely difficult. Additionally, an end user, who simply wishes to consume a font without an intimate knowledge of font creation, would be unable to use a font that requires manipulation of vector artwork.